Rethinking Grounding

Abstract

The grounding problem is, generally speaking, the problem of how to embed an artificial agent into its environment such that its behaviour, as well as the mechanisms, representations, etc. underlying it, can be intrinsic and meaningful to the agent itself, rather than dependent on an external designer or observer. This paper briefly reviews Searles and Harnads analyses of the grounding problem, and then evaluates cognitivist and enactive approaches to overcoming it. It is argued that, although these two categories of approaches differ in their nature and the problems they have to face, both, so far, fall short of solving the grounding problem for similar reasons. Further it is concluded that the reason the problem is still somewhat underestimated lies in the fact that modern situated and embodied AI, despite its emphasis of agent-environment interaction, still fails to fully acknowledge the historically rooted integrated nature of living organisms and their environmental embedding.